What started out as two different ways to give a sales tax break on food, quickly has degenerated into a legislative food fight between state Democrats and Republicans.
Yesterday, House Democratic Leader Gary Odom offered a bill that would take sales tax off milk, eggs and baby food. The Bredesen administration quickly declared that it wasn’t their idea. It turned out to be a favorite of Democratic House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh…
“If you ever watch a basket that a woman has, that she’s got children, you’re gonna find that they’ve got milk and eggs and baby food in that basket every time they go into a supermarket. And we are just trying to give some relief to those folks that we think need it most.”
But Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, a Republican, says the Democrats’ proposal doesn’t go far enough.
“It’s a good first step, but I think it needs to go a lot further than that. I mean, what’s the fiscal note? Like $14 million? Oh, $46 million, more than I thought. I couldn’t remember exactly. But I mean there may be a better way of doing that in my opinion. I think that for about that you could take the sales tax off all food for the month of December, for about that, it’s in the 50 or 55 [million dollar] range I think.”
Ramsey says Democrats are late to this particular party, and that Republicans have been trying to reduce sales tax on food all year.
But House Speaker Naifeh says he doubts the wisdom of Ramsey’s tax-free groceries for a whole month.
“I mean, when you talk about the month of December you’re talking about the biggest sales tax month that we have in Tennessee, and here we are, a state that depends on the revenue from the sales tax.”
Speaker Ramsey insists the state will have plenty of extra money when revenues are projected next month by the state Funding Board.
“It’s like we have this huge, non-recurring pot of money, and I’m very fiscally conservative. I want to make sure that we don’t hurt the future of the state of Tennessee. So when you know you got money in the bank, money in your back pocket, then give that tax break then on a one-time basis. We may take the sales tax off food in November and December.”
Some lawmakers are suggesting the revenue surplus will be around 500-million dollars. The governor says he doesn’t think it will be anywhere near that large. And whatever it is, he’d like to see it go into the rainy day fund.
WEB EXTRA
Even Rep. Randy Rinks (D-Savannah), the Democratic Party chair who usually keeps a low profile, couldn’t help adding to the debate. “The folks that are just getting by day to day, … won’t be able to take advantage of that like folks that have money and places to store, freezers and things like that…. Taking tax off food is trying to help people, the low income, that’s what taking tax off food has always been about. That’s the reason we didn’t raise it a penny that we did on everything else. To do it this way means we’re not helping those people, we’re helping people that have money to actually stockpile and take advantage of it. And I don’t know that that’s what we need to be doing.”
Senate Speaker Ramsey says the Democrats are just latching onto an issue that
Republicans have been pushing. “We on the Republican side have been very outspoken in the fact that we want some kind of tax relief, and we would like to do sales tax relief on food.”
Ramsey’s idea to cut food tax for a month or two may be different, but Naifeh says it’s not necessarily better. “I don’t think it matters what we do down here, they’re going to say that what they’re thinking about is going to be better. I put ’em on notice pretty much yesterday, that all they were doing is a lot of gibberish … and they still are. And this is in answer to what our majority leader did yesterday, I presume. I mean, they all got to scurrying around when we decided we were gonna do something, because they hadn’t done anything but talk.”
Finally Naifeh, the West Tennessee Democrat, vented against the idea of December sales tax breaks for GOP party planners. “You know what, what they’re wanting to do is help all their rich Republican friends who are buying all those expensive hors d’oeurves for all those Christmas parties they’re having, and I’m just not interested in doing that.”
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM